Lights out

We took our annual Christmas walk through the neighborhood the other night. We usually stick to our side of the lake, but this year we crossed over the 580 freeway and followed Trestle Glen Road for a few blocks before heading up into the hills between Grand Lake and Park Avenues. It's the sort of neighborhood that folks aspire to live in (whereas people describe our neighborhood as cool or nice). For instance, a guy pedaled up to our place a couple of weekends back sporting several hundreds dollars worth of bicycling footwear. It turned out that he lived on Trestle Glen and was considering buying a place in our neighborhood for his daughter.

It's difficult to describe this area without addressing the relative wealth that distinguishes it. An interesting and possibly telling point: of the 10 businesses Google Maps flag as local to or serving Trestle Glen none are actually on that road. Houses throughout the area are typically large, impressively appointed, and unusually well maintained. Along Trestle Glen in particular, a housing association maintains strict guidelines with regards to yard maintenance (I'm dimly recalling that there is a preferred yard services vendor for the association that is more exclusive than preferred) and appearance in general. In one 2 block stretch I counted 14 wreaths that looked haltingly similar. While this sort of thing is pretty common in subdivisions these days, it is also thoroughly contrary to most people's perceptions of Oakland.

Visiting wealthy neighborhoods to check out christmas lights brings its own set of expectations, and for the most part we were let down. A few houses really went the distance, but mostly we saw big Christmas trees in large street facing windows. Along the way we did notice some new types of christmas lights, including the large nested orb of light you see below.


A tree full of these is pretty impressive: